Friday, January 27, 2017

Very pleased that my article on Madagascar appears in the January 2017 issue of Cruising World. I've not seen it but the draft I saw looked great. Thanks to the editors!

waterfront scene at Crater Bay, Nosy Be, Madagascar

The article is based on our first impressions -- we arrived in Madagascar in August 2016, and it was our first encounter in Africa. By now that seems quite a while ago. Since then we've had two outboards stolen (we've wised up now -- we row to shore), become members of the Tanga Yacht Club and encouraged our younger daughter in her weekly commitment to the Youth Sailing Programme of Tanga. We've pent the last year (since December 2016) more or less based in Tanga, Tanzania. We've sailed to Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar and Lamu, Kenya; we've visited (via air and land) NgoroNgoro Crater, the Serengeti and Cape Town.

We've made heaps of friends. We love East Africa in general and Tanga, specifically.

We'll post more stories from our time in East Africa, but as always life continues and the blogging is, well, not really a point of focus. But we like dropping in here now and again, and we're glad when our paths cross with others who may like to share experiences.

For now, I'll share a wee story -- fiction -- that was Commended last year in the Bath Flash Fiction Award. It's part of a collection of small stories that draws on the imaginative dreamworlds of the animal kingdom. Thanks for reading!

Monday, July 4, 2016

It was a fast jaunt from Tanga to Lamu (approx. 200 nautical miles). We stopped first just over the border in Shimoni to check into Kenya. The officials were very friendly but also quite thorough, very much on guard against Al-Shabaab. They checked us out more thoroughly than anywhere we've been since New Zealand, asking questions about safety gear and looking through lockers and under beds. On shore, we asked the immigration officer about the piracy situation, whether it was safe for us to sail to Lamu. He said that the fishing boats go up to Lamu all the time. I asked: And they come back? Yes, they come back, he smiled. Evidently, the trip to Lamu by sea is now safer than by land. After two days in Shimoni, we continued to Lamu, way too fast for my liking, the pleasure of moving at 8 and 9 knots with a moderate following wind and strong favorable current muted by the knowledge that soon we'll have to struggle against this wind and current to make it back to Tanga. So much for living in the moment.

Momo anchored in Shimoni, with Q flag, after an excellent day sail from Tanga (30 miles).

Momo's escort to shore; Shimoni officials included the driver, the man in charge (pictured above) who scanned our papers and asked questions, the driver (a nice boy who drove us back to Momo later in the evening) and two more escorts who looked through Momo's lockers -- always with huge smiles.

Fast trip to shore for check-in. We had planned to rest at anchor for the evening and then check in, but we were warned that waiting a day to go to immigration would land us in jail. We took the friendly advice and nice ride, and checked in on the evening of our arrival.

Lamu waterfront: Al Jazeera (the boat).

There are (virtually) no cars on the island of Lamu. Transport is by donkey. Or by boat (almost all of them powered by two-stroke Yamaha Enduro outboards, by the way, mostly 15 hp).

Old mosque in Lamu town under reconstruction/ repair.

Boy, donkey, transport boat, sails: typical Lamu waterfront scene.

Spindly-legged donkeys carry everything, from people to heavy bricks for construction.

Small dhows in front of old Lamu Town.

View to waterfront from typical arched doorway.

Constant care to boats -- we know it; they know it.

Momo's colors, with a message. And a nice outboard.

Kids playing Bao, a traditional East African mancala board game

A friendly antiques dealer who said that if we used the proper keywords we could find him on Google. But we forgot the keywords, so we can't.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

The
house went up in flames in a matter of minutes. Once the spark jumped from the
burning field to the nearby palm and then the makuti roof, there was no
stopping it.

The
couple grabbed what they could and fled. Got out with the most important items
in tow: baby, passports, laptop, iPhone, a few bags of clothes.

We
meet two days later; I go with them to the market to buy necessary replacement
items; for two days G has been living in pajamas, her clothes turned to ash.
She tells me the details of the fire while we drive: her fear, the moment she
saw the palm tree go, how she knew then it was time to scoop up the baby and leave.
How it all seemed so surreal – you never
really realize it’s happening when it’s actually happening. How they are
still processing the whole event. How, besides what they grabbed in those first
few moments, most things are burnt to black: furniture, clothing, camera, baby
clothes, sentimental stuff, books.

I
recall a book we lent them last week – a family favorite, a gift from my
mother. I wonder if it survived the flames, but I don’t ask.

G
says that they’ve had wonderful support, except for the one comment that ruined
her day. Judgmental, condescending. Suggesting parental irresponsibility for
having a baby in Africa in the first place, implying that similar disasters
could be avoided if only these young parents would wise up and get their baby
back to the safety of home shores. That comment began with “I’ll say what
everyone else is thinking…”

Not everyone.

The
naysayers come out when the going gets tough. The naysayers will tell you the
things you can’t do. We’ve heard plenty.

You can’t raise a baby on a boat.

You can’t give birth in Mexico.

You can’t sail across oceans with children.

You can’t you can’t you can’t.

The
naysayers are good at prescriptive advice. The naysayers fit life into a space
with four predictable corners.

The
naysayers haven’t tried to live outside the box. They just know they can’t.

When
our first baby was due, we were told we needed a paediatrician before the baby
was born. We did as suggested; we ‘interviewed’ several potential
paediatricians one month prior to the baby’s birth. Important topics such as
immunization schedules, birth weights and standardized expectations for a
healthy baby dominated the sessions. Books were consulted; charts were
referenced. Only one listened to our story – how we planned to move aboard our
28’ boat, with our baby, as soon as
summer arrived – and said, “Listen. You can raise your children anywhere in the
world.” He was from Egypt. He’d seen a few things before landing his practice
in Baltimore. “Love your baby,” he said, “and she’ll have a good life.”

*

Lunchtime.
We admire our purchases from the market; G does not have to walk around in her
pajamas anymore. Our friends tell the story of their wedding bands – metal,
plain – and purchased in Malaysia for $2.
We laugh at that, and we laugh again when they tell us they purchased an extra ring, because E knew he’d lose the
first one. We laugh a third time when he tells us the one he’s wearing is the
replacement ring.

The
baby sits on dad’s lap, blowing bubbles.

“Oh!”
says G suddenly. “Your book! I’ve just remembered your book!” This talk of lost
things. G realises now that the book we lent her is destroyed, gone.

“It
doesn’t matter,” I say quickly. But as soon as I say it I know I’ve misspoken.
The book does matter. Just the like
the wedding bands – the lost one and the replacement. What doesn’t matter is
that the ring was lost, that the book was burnt to bits. But they are still
part of the story.

I
reach to take the baby, to hold him while his parents eat. I put him to my
shoulder and inhale – he smells like he should: fresh, warm, milky soft. He
squirms a bit and almost cries.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Southern
Serengeti, mid-March: we are surrounded by thousands of wildebeests on either
side. We’ve stopped our vehicle to watch. We look left and right, forward and
back: they are everywhere, a sea of life across this African plain. Running,
jumping, grazing, nursing. Bucks and youngsters, mothers and babies. We are
here at the end of calving season (500,000 calves are born each year, in a
mostly condensed time frame near the end of February ) and the beginning of their
annual migration (map here).
They are gathering in the tens of thousands, nursing their young and congregating under trees. When we first see them, the grass is tall and wavy; near the end of our week we see large swaths of short stubble as they set out, following patterns of
rains and grassland. Some 1.5 million wildebeests and 250,000 zebra travel a
nearly 2000-mile clockwise route each year to move south to west to north
(traversing national boundaries into Kenya’s Mara Maarai game reserve as well), and then
back again when the season comes round. Besides wildebeest and zebra, the
migration also includes Grant and Thompson gazelles, impala and eland. We feel
lucky and overwhelmed by the sheer numbers.

*

The
Serengeti is named from the Maasai language, Maa: ‘serengit’ means ‘endless
plains’.

Seeing
this migration in the Serengeti takes some doing. You have to travel hundreds of
miles (or thousands, depending on your departure point) just to get here, first
by air and then over rough roads. Our focus was the southern Serengeti and the Seronera
Valley, a grassy expanse of plain with granite kopjes offering shade and
shelter for their own mini-ecosystems with thriving baboon families, snakes, chameleons
and red-headed rock agama. How’d we come to be here, so far from our usual
coastal living? A relative who visits every now and then said at the beginning
of the month that he’d like to go on a safari – and invited us along. So we buttoned
up Momo and flew to Arusha. From
there, we travelled for a week with our binoculars and guide.

We
learned more in a week than we’ve ever learned about animals, big and small. We
sat in silence on the side of the road, day after day, awed by the vibrancy of
life around us: elephants bathing, lions mating, giraffes loping, cheetahs
feeding, rhinos grazing, eagles swooping, flamingos flapping, buffalo grunting,
buzzards buzzing, weavers weaving. Even dung beetles pushing their oversized
loads and tortoises sunbathing. We didn’t know what to expect when we said a
spontaneous yes to the offer of a
week in Ngorongoro and the Serengeti. We didn’t even know what The Big Five
were. But we know some things now. We saw The Big Five, yes. We saw The Ugly
Five. We even saw some of The Small Five. In a short week, days stretched from
pre-dawn purples to the deep black of night. We drove and drove and drove. It
made me feel very small, and very fortunate to be alive on this earth. It made
me cry at the unspoilt beauty.

*

We
fly back to Momo after our short
sojourn inland, awe and wonder pushing up in our chests as we looked down at
the expanse of land below us. We usually don’t have this kind of view – not in
such a compressed period of time. We see the world slowly; we follow the
horizon and travel with wind and current. We nourish ourselves with fish and
whatever’s available at local markets. We don’t buy meat anymore – because it’s
too hard to manage, because it’s overpriced, because it’s… Because.

We
feel both exhilarated and overwhelmed by the wildlife of the Serengeti – by the
numbers, by the variety, by the tenacity of nature. In 1972, when the United
Nations met to set up World Heritage Sites, the Serengeti topped the list. These days, there's continued talk of building a highway straight through the middle
of it.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

What for them is the call to prayer
wakes me up at an hour ungodly and dark; for me, it’s the call to check my
email for work. I translate stuff from German into English (mostly for
lawyers, bankers, and corporations via an agency in New York but sometimes
for academics who care to seek me out), dressed only in my "Soda"-labeled
underwear purchased in Malaysia, extra large but still too small, hence
filling me with confidence.

Not long after first light, the day’s
first swimmers appear – two, three, or four dark heads bobbing around the
boat. They swim out from the
bathing club that shares the little bay’s waterfront, flanked on one side by
the yacht club and by the swimming club on the other. Of the three, the
bathing club has the most raucous fun, with loud music and frequent games of
soccer on the beach; the swimming club doesn’tseem to have much fun at all,
but it has a substantial and well-lit building and serves pretty good Indian
food (there's a new chef, I've heard). Most mornings Michelle and I try to
steal a moment for ourselves and have coffee on the bow before the sun really
kicks in. But we sit just in front of Lola’s hatch, and she invariably
pipes in with “what was that?” the moment she hears our voices. Speaking in
German only invites further interrogation.

We find ourselves in a remarkably secure anchorage in a
remarkably pleasant impromptu community. What we have here is a handful of peculiar sailors following very different trajectories and
motivated by very different purposes. Everybody has stories to tell and
experiences to share, but, unlike what we've found in the so-called cruising community, there is no jockeying for position or assertive
need to dispense advice or expertise. Perhaps this is because we are really not a
community at all but just a serendipitous constellation unmanaged by
spreadsheets or radio schedules and without the coherence that comes from
shared agendas, for we will very soon disperse in entirely different
directions. But for now I'm swapping ideas with Josh for making pressure-cooker bread and smoking Stephan's cigarettes in exchange for the occasional beer.

Here in Tanga, this handful of sailors intersects with a cluster
of less transient but equally peculiar grounded folks – builders, farmers, aid
workers, missionaries, restaurant owners, resort owners, peace corp
volunteers – many of whom are also just passing through, but more slowly. We orbit around a yacht club that was once an Anglo-Saxon colonial
institution but has now become more of cordial multi-ethnic drinking club overrun
by monkeys with sky-blue testicles (only the males, of course; Michelle was
hoping that the females had sky-blue nipples, but they don't) and posting
lots of unenforced rules and boasting a multi-term, ethnically Indian
commodore who doesn’t own a boat. For years now, cruising boats have stayed
away because of the Somali pirates, but perhaps they are coming back. In any
event, there’s a move afoot to shift the club’s focus back to the water,
which has led to the tentative resurrection of three or four Optimists and
sailing lessons for the kids, taught by a heartsick French single-hander who
has sailed around the Horn and by Jana, who hasn't.

Bernard Heise works as a German-to-English translator and is a member of the New Zealand Society of Translators & Interpreters. Along with working for agencies in the legal, marketing, and financial fields, he specializes in academic translations, primarily in the social sciences. You can download his CV here.

Welcome
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Michelle Elvy is an editor whose experience varies from very short fiction
to novel-length manuscripts. She works as a mentor and private tutor with a
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WHAT'S IN A NAME

From Michael Ende's Momo (1973):

Momo went over to the door, touched it with her hour-lily, which had only one petal left, and opened it wide. The time store was cold no longer, now that the last of the time-thieves had gone. Momo marveled at the contents of the huge vault. Innumerable hour-lilies were arrayed in its endless shelves like crystal goblets, no two alike and each more beautiful than the other. Hundreds of thousands, indeed, millions of hours were stored here, all of them stolen from people's lives. The temperature steadily rose until the vault was as hot as a greenhouse. Just as the last petal in Momo's hour-lily fluttered to the ground, all the other flowers left their shelves in clouds and swirled above her head. It was like a warm spring storm, but a storm made up of time released from captivity.